Goodnight, John-boy: Chapter 29
‘I’ve lost my girlfriend, my job, and I can’t even kill the right fucking knight.’
Welcome to Book Two of my dark comedy thriller series, Read Em And Weep.
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If you’re new to the Read Em And Weep series, start with Book One: Serial Killer.
Not even the old Fleet prison down the road or a Greek jail could compare with The Hole.
The Laarf! ‘Specials’.
They were both given life sentences.
This time, there was no comforting music from The Great Escape in his head to comfort him and reassure there would – somehow – be a way out. There was no way out.
Heading for ‘Mirth Row’, Dave and Greg heard a distant baleful laugh from the Laarf! office. They looked at each other and shuddered. It came from editor Tom Morecambe, and sounded like a soul in torment, the wail of a banshee, or the high-pitched scream of a vampire in a Hammer movie, and confirmed ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’
It reminded them of their previous stretch on the Devil’s Island of comics. They had worked on Andy’s Anorak, Billy Blower, William the Conkerer and Dirty Barry. The latter was possibly the worst. Every week, Dirty Barry was splashed by cars, dogs cocked their legs on him, and he was dive-bombed by pigeons. Or he passed a cess-pit lorry driver who accidentally pressed a lever marked ‘Blow’ instead of ‘Suck’ on his tanker, so he was covered in sewage.
Onlookers were always concerned for the boy, until they recognised Barry through the filth; then they didn’t care. It always ended with the same punchline:
‘It’s all right! It’s only Dirty Barry!’
It had taken the combined efforts of Ron, Leni and Joy to stop Dave and Greg being fired. Joy had threatened she would resign. Leni had pointed out that Quentin and Howard had struck the first blows.
But it was Ron who explained to the directors that Dave and Greg could cause more problems if they were on the outside. With their new-found notoriety, they could give exclusives to the tabloids and reveal the secrets of Fleetpit. Secrets such as the legendary hundred-year old archives that were being quietly destroyed as a cost-cutting measure before the move over the water to Southwark. Dave was one of the despised ‘aficionados’ who felt strongly about the nation’s cultural heritage ending up in an incinerator. Ron pointed out it was best to keep potential enemies close.
Aaagh! was banned with immediate effect. But its huge popularity meant it would return in a suitably castrated form. And who better to castrate it than Pete Sullivan, who had just finished a stint as caretaker editor of the children’s educational magazine, ‘But Why?’ He had almost destroyed ‘But Why?’ with his feature on edible mushrooms that children could forage and safely eat. The list of edible fungi included the Death Cap, which was 95% fatal and had no cure. The entire print run had to be sent back from the newsagents to be destroyed.
Yes, thought Dave bitterly, Sullivan would ‘take care’ of Aaagh! and The Spanker.
Originally an assistant editor on Casino for the Man about Town, Sullivan’s time on the soft-porn magazine meant that he saw sexual references everywhere. As he took over Aaagh! and The Spanker from Dave, he had looked alarmed at the liquorice pipe projecting from his mouth.
‘What is it, Pete?’ Dave asked curiously. ‘What is it about a liquorice pipe that you find offensive? What are you seeing that I’m not seeing? A saxophone? A black man’s cock? A dildo? Here. Take a closer look.’
Sullivan looked repelled at the black object and backed away. ‘I’d rather you didn’t wave that in my face, Dave.’
And so Dave and Greg headed for The Hole, and their life sentence on the infamous ‘Specials’.
The Laarf! Puzzle Special was especially mind numbing: spotting the difference with Andy’s Anorak. Joining the dots with Billy Blower. And Dirty Barry had fallen into a sewer.
Again.
‘Help him find his way out of the sewer maze’.
Greg looked up grimly from editing the Gambling Madd fruit machine puzzle game.
Gambling Madd was one of Laarf ’s most popular characters. Kids loved him. Every week Gambling Madd was bunking off school to play cards or hang out in fruit machine arcades. That was when he wasn’t being thrown out of betting shops, bingo halls, casinos, and dog racing stadiums. Often his gambling efforts would pay off and result in him ending up with a huge pile of cash and going out for a slap-up feed.
‘So it’s okay to have a cartoon strip about a kid who’s a compulsive gambler, but it’s not okay to have a story about lorry driver fighting for freedom.’
‘Can’t have working-class heroes, Greg. Look at all the great heroes of fiction: Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, the Scarlet Pimpernel, Richard Hannay. White, rich, upper class. It’s deliberate. It’s social conditioning.’
‘Same with comics,’ agreed Greg. ‘Dan Darwin. Batman. Caning Commando.’
‘They want readers to know their place. Like Alf Mast.’
‘Stupid sidekicks.’
‘With no future. Like us, Greg. Except they may get a better job as a fruit machine tester.’
Still in a despondent mood, Dave later met up with Scott at a café near Farringdon Station. They’d agreed to stay in touch. The boy was in an upbeat mood because there were still no parties and they were being let out again. Life in Castle Ramparts was actually becoming bearable.
‘And if the parties do start again, well, then we deal with Keen.’
‘Something to look forward to,’ said Dave morosely.
‘You must be gutted about Aaagh! being banned?’ Scott enquired.
‘No. I don’t care,’ shrugged Dave indifferently. ‘It’s just a comic.’
He then proceeded to talk for thirty minutes about how little he cared about his comic being banned.
‘Plus,’ he said, in between bites of his sandwich. ‘I’ve lost my girlfriend, my job, and I can’t even kill the right fucking knight.’
‘The Canon was still a scumbag.’
‘I haven’t finished yet. I’m doing time in The Hole. And I’ve discovered who my real dad is. He turns out to be a complete shit who is trying to get money out of me. As opposed to my other dad, who drank himself to death.’
‘Some of us at Castle Ramparts went through bad shit,’ sympathised Scott. ‘But we’re going to win this time. You’re with a winner.’
‘And I’m a loser,’ said Dave. ‘You really shouldn’t hang around with someone like me.’
‘Everyone can win, Dave.’
‘Not true. They want us to know our place.’
‘You mean like Alf Mast? Sleeping in the boiler room?’ laughed Scott.
‘I should have known my place when I left school. I was an errand boy riding a trade-bike around the docks. And now I’m where I really belong, in The Hole.’
‘It sounds like a nightmare.’
‘On the contrary, The Hole has much to commend it. I’m actually better off in my slough of despond. Comfier. One day you’ll understand, Scott, that life is a plate of shit and every day we eat another mouthful.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
Dave sighed. ‘Anyone who breaks the rules, who dares to challenge them, always ends up in the shit. Like Dirty Barry.’
‘You were still right to stand up to Cowley, Dave. He swapped his reporter’s clipboard for some kid’s valuable number one issue of Homework. He’s a creep.’
‘That’s what they’re all really like under their cardigans and their tank tops.’
‘And you showed us that in Aaagh! And showed us we can beat them.’
Dave imitated Quentin and his patronising, careful pronunciation, talking to kids as if they were complete idiots. ‘A p-a-p-e-r u-n-i-v-e-r-s-i-t-y.’
‘That’s why he hated you. ’Cos you showed him up.’
‘Don’t know about that,’ said Dave, starting to enjoy the praise.
‘I do. I’ve seen him at Keen’s show-biz parties, with all the other TV stars, snorting coke. He’s a fucking hypocrite. Only he’s not into kids; he sticks to hookers, who Fab also provides, of course.’
‘So I was right not to trust a man who wears a tank top?’
‘When I saw him, he was wearing lingerie and was on a dog-leash.’
‘Well, he is a newshound.’
‘You have no idea of the effect Aaagh! had on everyone, Dave. It was massive.’
‘Really?’ Dave was definitely brightening up now.
‘That Saturday Aaagh! was banned, there were kids running down the street yelling ‘Aaagh’s been banned! Aaagh’s been banned!’
The world was definitely a sunnier place, even if Dave couldn’t actually see the sun as the café windows were fogged up from all the cigarette smoke.
‘Aaagh! made a difference, Dave,’ said Scott. ‘Just remember that.’
Goodnight, John-boy is the second book in the Read Em And Weep series and you can buy it digitally or as a paperback.